In the production of animals for meat, wool, pelts and the like or for laboratory use, it is very desirable to be able to identify each animal individually and to periodically record individual animal information such as weight performance, progeny performance, carcass characteristics, physical condition, etc. A system for the recording and management of individual animal information would be a valuable tool in breeding, feeding, testing and other aspects of animal production as well as in disease eradication, laboratory experimentation, wild-life management and other programs.
The field is confronted with two serious problems. One is the lack of a tag or identifying device which will individually identify each animal and carry other essential information through an adequate coding system and which can be reliably read either visually or by machine. The other is the lack of a system which records essential information about each animal as the animal is processed and which produces the information in usable form as required. Thus, present methods are so limited as to seriously hamper the use of advanced concepts of breeding and management. Identifying tags have been applied to various portions of the anatomy but have serious limitations in actual use. Visual readability is difficult because of being obscured by location, hair growth, etc. Present tags are limited in the numbering or coding systems that can be accommodated and thus cannot provide all of the information that is essential. The loss of tags makes present systems difficult to maintain. In addition, present tags have no capability for being read automatically by machines, preventing development of automatic record keeping.
The thrust of the invention is to provide the essential elements required by a comprehensive animal identification and information system.